How Hobbes came into Being
by SocialistgurlJwl
Summary: Ever wondered where Hobbes came from? Here is my explanation...Please R&R. Fourth CHAPTER UP!.
1. Awakening

Disclaimer: I don't own Calvin or Hobbes, but I do have the Magical Toy factory and store, as well as Lucinda.  
  
The first time Hobbes woke up, it was dark and hot. He felt himself stretch and yowl, feeling the new limits of his furry body. He called out, softly, "Where am I?" to the darkness. But no one replied. The tiger sat there in the darkness, wondering why there was so much heat in this place and why he was being jostled around so much. And then, suddenly, it stopped. The tiger heard footsteps. Other People! He thought to himself. I wonder if they look anything like me. Come to think of It, what do I look like? All of a sudden, the wall on his right opened. The thing that opened it was big, pink and ugly. Probably has the intellectual capabilities of a frog, thought the tiger, already being very smart himself. Having never seen one of these things, he flopped down behind one of the boxes and lied prostrate. The big ugly thing was taking out boxes from the Dark Place and was setting them on the ground outside. He caught sight of the stuffed tiger by itself, and pulled it out. Staring the big pink thing in the eye, the tiger decided, was worse than having to go under the needle in the factory. The factory! It all came back to him now: Painful memories of the humongous needle machine, his body being stuffed with a strange material, the first sensation of your insides rubbing together, seeing them.. No, it was best forgotten. The tiger put those awful memories behind him as the big pink thing chucked him in the box. Inside, there were other beings that matched with the tiger. They were orange and had black stripes, with white and black on their hands. But when Hobbes, joyful at meeting his brethren, embraced them, they hung limp in his arms. When he stared them in the eye, they made no attempt to stare back, let alone make eye movement; they just stared on ahead. These automatons frightened the tiger. All of a sudden, he felt very alone. The big pink thing had taken the boxes inside. Hobbes felt the box and its contents slide around. And again it stopped. The tiger heard a door slam behind him. He poked his head out of the box. There, in the room before him, were shelves upon shelves of those chilling automatons, eyes blank and staring, slumped over, hands held in front of them, like zombies. Hobbes wondered how long he would be staying in this graveyard.  
  
A/N: Sorry I didn't introduce Lucinda yet, but this felt like a good break- off point. More is on the way! Please review! 


	2. Lucinda Explains

Disclaimer: I don't own Calvin or Hobbes, but I do have the Magical Toys factory and store, as well as Lucinda.  
  
Hobbes hopped out of the box and sat on a package, thinking. Why would anyone try to make all of these stuffed animals the same, yet I am, so far, the only speaking, thinking, moving one? He thought sadly. I would've been better off like them than this lonely.  
  
The tiger surveyed the room from his small vantage point. All of the stuffed ones' barren eyes seemed to gleam back at him. He shivered.  
  
All of a sudden, a thing hit him in the back. It was very big, and traveling at a very high velocity. Surprised, the tiger let out a yelp as the other thing bowled him over. They did a couple of flips, then settled down in a pile of white stuffing.  
  
Hobbes leapt out of the pile of 'insides', and rubbed his head. Another head popped out of the insides, panting and smiling. "Sorry about that, mate, but I just had to." The other cat's voice was higher, and unlike anything the tiger had heard. The tiger looked over at her, ruffled. "Sorry for what? Nearly knocking my head off?" The tigress waded out of the stuffing to sit by the tiger. "It's called pouncing. Besides, I had to make sure that you were moving and not the wind." Hobbes remembered a bit. Another moving tiger! So he wasn't alone after all.  
  
The tigress held out a paw. "My name's Lucinda. Pleased to meet ya." The tiger shook her hand. "My name is.well, I don't know, but I'm very glad to meet you." Lucinda frowned. "Of course you have a name! It says so on a tag on your back." Lucinda spun the nameless tiger around to face his back. "Here it is! It says.." Lucinda gradually sounded out his name. ("Hoddes? That doesn't make any sense!") Finally, she told him, "Your name is Hobbes."  
  
Hobbes, thought Hobbes. That sounds like a nice name.  
  
"So, Lucinda," said Hobbes after a while. "There are other moving animals, after all."  
  
Lucinda began to bat at the head of a motionless tiger. "Oh yeah," she said over her shoulder, "There are lots of them! But we aren't exactly real animals. Real animals live in cages and are expected to move a lot. Sometimes humans (that's the name of those pink things) don't treat them that well."  
  
Hobbes shivered. "I don't like humans very much. They give me the creeps."  
  
Lucinda abandoned the automaton in favor of a fly zooming about her head. "But wait! It gets better. We are what humans call stuffed animals. We are supposed to be still while human cubs abuse us and throw us around. But Stuffed Animals aren't supposed to mind that." Lucinda gestured to the shelves full of Stuffed Animals. "These guys are the norm. I suppose they might have a thought in their heads," she wondered aloud, "But they haven't expressed anything to me." The tigress turned back to Hobbes. "But you and me, Hobbes. We're different. We were actually supposed to be like them"- she jabbed a digit at the normal ones -"But when we were made, something.went wrong. We are anomalies. We are stuffed animals with human qualities. A human would have a heart attack if they knew we were having this conversation, let alone walk around and talk." Lucinda sighed. "This gift or curse, depending upon your persuasion, is special. I think others have it too. One stuffed frog down the hall has it. (You'll meet him some day) The bunnies seem pretty dead to me, and so do the fishes and giraffes, though I could be wrong."  
  
Hobbes contemplated her long speech for a while. Then, thoughtfully, he said, "I think it's a gift. Maybe we're supposed to watch over the non- moving ones or something like that." "Perhaps," replied Lucinda, "But I'm not finished quite yet."  
  
"This place that were are in is called a store. It's called 'The Magic Toy Store', and they sell us here to humans." "What do you mean, to humans?" Hobbes nearly yelled. He just didn't like those humans very much. "Shut up! They might hear you!" Lucinda padded over to the door and put her ear against it. When the danger passed, she continued. "They exchange green pieces of paper and just sell us to them. Like slaves. There's not much that we can do about it, except hope for a good home."  
  
Hobbes thought to himself, I hope I find a nice place to live. With a little girl, perhaps. 


	3. Meeting the others

Thanks to all my reviewers, and sorry this installment took so long. Enjoy!  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Calvin or Hobbes, but I do have the Magical Toys factory and store, as well as Lucinda.  
  
Hobbes sighed. "So have you been out there, into this store? What do they do?" Lucinda began to play with her tail. "Well, they sit you down on a shelf with a bunch of the other ones with you. You just sit there for a few days until a human picks you up and give the guy at the front that green stuff. And they take you away."  
  
Hobbes became nervous at the notion of being away from Lucinda (he had already grown attached to her) and that humans would take him away, no less. "So." he added, "What happens when they take you away?" Lucinda sat up and gave him a funny look. "Full of questions, are we? Well, to be honest, I don't really know. There's this one dog next door that was returned, and she said that a human child played with her until that kid tore one of her legs off." Hobbes shuddered at the very thought. He was about to say something when Lucinda cried, "Shhh!" and dragged him behind a crate.  
  
"What is-?" Hobbes was cut off by Lucinda's paw over his mouth. Slowly, he looked over the box top.  
  
There was a human in the room, with another box. He was grazing the shelves, picking out stuffed tigers and taking them with him. When the box was full, he strolled out of the room, whistling a tune, turned off the light, and locked the door behind him. Lucinda and Hobbes listened carefully as he turned the lights off in the hall and walked out. Through the window, Hobbes could see that the sun was setting.  
  
Lucinda rubbed her paws together in anticipation. "Oh boy! This is the best part of the day. C'mon!" She dragged Hobbes over to the door, jumped up and caught the handle. It rotated, and the door opened. Lucinda beckoned Hobbes out into the hall. Curiously, Hobbes poked his head out of the door. The hall was dark and the walls were bare, but empty, an improvement from the Room of Zombies (What Hobbes had dubbed the wherehouse Tiger room). Lucinda unlocked the next door and led Hobbes through.  
  
What Hobbes beheld was awesome. (A/N: not in the 'cool, dude' sense, but in awe.okay, I'll shut up.) They had entered a broad room, filled with other types of toys that Hobbes had never seen before, as well as colors: greens and blues, oranges and purples.  
  
Lucinda motioned him over to a shelf side; paw over her lips, and pointed. Hobbes looked, slowly. There, hopping around, was a green thing, with long arms and webbed toes and hands. Hobbes recalled Lucinda telling him that there were creatures other than tigers, but Hobbes never thought there would be something as.strange. as this thing. "What is it?" He whispered. "It's a frog." Replied Lucinda softly. "You know, hop, hop, ribbit, ribbit?" Hobbes stared at her blankly. "Anyways, his name is Frank. Say," she said, a sly grin appearing on her face, "This is a good opportunity for you to practice your pouncing skills." She began to show him how to pounce- crouch like this, claws out, blah blah blah- until he was finally ready. Lucinda knocked on the floor. Frank the frog stopped hopping and looked up. "Lucinda?" he called, lonely.  
  
"NOW!" Lucinda yelled. Hobbes felt his instincts take hold of him as he sailed through the air. He decided, in mid-pounce, that this was his new favorite hobby.  
  
Hobbes crashed into Frank at an amazing speed. They did a couple of somersaults before they crashed into the wall. Hobbes stood up, shook himself, and held out a paw as a greeting to the frog. Frank could only manage a weak smile.  
  
Lucinda came cantering up, shaking with laughter. "Hoo boy! You should've seen the look on his face; eyes as big as dinner plates!" Frank was not amused. "I'll get you later for this, Fuzz-head." He socked Lucinda in the arm, (she giggled a little more) and then faced Hobbes. "I believe we haven't been introduced properly," He said with a smile. Formal introductions were given out, then Frank took them to 'the rest of the gang', which were an isle or two away.  
  
When Hobbes got there, these strange, new animals blew him away. He was amazed at how tall the giraffe was (although it was sort of small, in human terms, but it was big to him). There was Ellen, the giraffe, Tom and Bobbie, two dogs, Ramone the alligator, and Sue the inchworm. They spent the whole night telling Hobbes the tales of their experiences in the storm. Sue told him how she was about to be bought by an awful little boy. She was lying on the floor, beside the little boy, who was arguing with his parents, when she crawled to the safety of a high-rise shelf. Bobbie recounted how her leg had been torn off, but if it weren't for this she wouldn't have met her 'soul-mate' Tom.  
  
Toward the wee hours, they engaged in a game of hide and seek. Hobbes had decided to hide in the booth where the cash register. He curled up in a tight ball, expecting It to find him. but It never did. He waited for a little longer, but to no avail. Annoyed he stood up and looked over the counter top. "C'mon-"  
  
What he saw was so frightening. There was a man in the store, turning on lights and sweeping up the place. He jerked his head at Hobbes' speech. "Who's there?"  
  
Hobbes went limp. The man looked over at him and laughed. "It ain't nothing but a tiger. Let me put you back in your right place." He walked over and grabbed Hobbes by the scruff of the neck. This definitely isn't good, thought Hobbes, feeling the man's grubby hands suffocate him.  
  
The man set him down on a low shelf with a bunch of other stuffed tigers. Hobbes looked around him angrily. The others had left him all alone. 


	4. Alone

Sorry, I've been inactive on this site for while for various reasons- school, working on my own writings, yadda yadda yadda- and I was quite surprised when ginnyhatesthem sent me those reviews. That spurred me to write again on my story.

Disclaimer: I don't own… oh, the hell with it…

Hobbes sought out refuge behind the automaton tigers near the wall on a higher shelf, and sulked for the rest of that day. Why had they left him all alone? He just didn't understand it….

When his sulking gave way to boredom, he watched the people below, picking toys out. There was one particular couple that caught his attention. They were arguing about whether or not they would buy their young son a Stuffed Animal. "I think he'd want a giraffe," Said the father, picking up one. "Yeah, but he was looking particularly interested in the tigers in that nature special last night," said the Mother, looking over a fake Tiger on the lower levels. "Are you sure that we should reward him for his recent behavior? I mean, for God's sake, he tried to set fire to-"

"Honey. He's just a toddler. Let's bring him here tomorrow, and he'll pick out the one that he wants." The Father begrudgingly nodded, and they walked away.

Hobbes started to think about this. What kid wouldn't want a walking, talking tiger for a pet? Since Lucinda abandoned him, he started thinking about leaving the store. The companionship of a human child didn't seem to be so bad as Lucinda made it seem. From Hobbes' observations, they seemed to be quite gentle- at least the girl children. But this was a little kid! How harmful could he be?

Night fell, and the humans left. Hobbes began to fall asleep, and forget the hustle and bustle of the day when-

"Hobbes! Hobbes! Where are you?"


End file.
